Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I met a DOH employee the other day and passed this post his way. His response:

"The Health Code says thou shalt not
store potentially hazardous food between the 41 and 140 degrees ("the
danger zone"), because in this range any nasty bugs can grow at a
truly alarming rate. What makes a food potentially hazardous? If a
food has too high a moisture content, too low a salt content, or an
acidity level that is too low, then it is potentially hazardous. In
other words, if the food is really dry, nothing can grow on it, or at
least not fast enough for the Health Department to worry about. Why is
it OK to store some slices at room temperature? There is enough salt
in the cheese and enough acidity in the tomato sauce to keep anything
from growing. Slices with peperoni? That's a cured meat, so it's not
potentially hazardous. However, cooked chicken is another matter. And,
if you think of it outside the context of pizza, you'd probably think,
yeah, I wouldn't want to eat a piece of chicken that has been left out
at room temperature for two hours. Would you definitely get sick? No,
but you might, and someone with a weak immune system could be in
trouble.

So what about those "for display only" signs? Pizzeria owners say that
people will only order a slice with toppings if they see the slices on
display. The theory is that the patron will see the slice with chicken
on it, order a slice with chicken, and magically a slice with chicken
that has been made from scratch or stored at a safe temperature is
what will be served. But not the slice that the patron sees on the
counter under the sign "for display only", which in theory must be
discarded. In reality, what is on display was probably left over from
the lunch or dinner rush, and the pizza man is hoping to sell it
without the DOH noticing. Since restaurants get inspected about once a
year, it's a pretty safe bet.

Do some rookie inspectors screw this one up? Sure. But do most pizza
makers know about this rule? Yes, or at least they should. Is it fair
to ding them for it? There are plenty of injustices in the system, but
this one of the less disturbing ones, in my opinion."

Weather forecast looks great for Sunday.
Is the ride still on?
How many can we expect?
As a recreational rider, I'd like to keep a comfortable pace, not a racing pace. What do you estimate the entire on-bike time to be?

@ serious pizza
i know ha ha the guy from the voice must be confused by this.
but he need not be cuz it was awesome.
yes you're right, keste makes it to look much different.
it tastes very much the same. of course the ingredients are better in italy cuz they are grown there and brought to your table asap as opposed to being imported. and of course zucchine flowers are not only hard to come by but extremely expensive here in the u.s.
but keste does a great job with it. even if roberto isn't making the pizzas. there's other great pizzaioli there who make fantastic pizza.

I'd like to be a part of this. Hope the group moves relatively slowly so this old man doesn't have a massive coronary. I'll watch the comments here to see if it gets too crowded.

Like you said, this could be trouble at Di Fara. L&B, on the other hand, is pretty much made for this type of thing. Of course, Sunday is my day of football so I'm pretty sure I won't be there....

Great post nextgospel ! Can't wait to read more of your trip reviews.
What's with the Pizza a Baccala' on the sandwich board outside?
Funny,but that Pizza del Papa bears zero resemblance to the ones served at Keste IMO? Walnut cream on Pizza?
Where's that guy from the Village Voice .........

I'm extremely jealous, nextgospel. I would LOVE to try a fried & baked pizza; it just sounds all kinds of right.

I have to admit, both the Il Corno di Maradona and the angioletti look absolutely repugnant (the first resembles a deep fried giraffe's penis and the second diarrhea on egg rolls), but I'm sure they would have tasted awesome. I've yet to find the dessert that wasn't improved by Nutella.

Thanks for the write-up!

hhhmmm wellllllll....
which one do i go to first, my cousins or the pizzas?
ha ha
adam, first THANKS for posting this. it was really sweet of you.
second, i got more coming.
third, i actually asked to have my margherita with bufala and NOT fior di latte (cow's milk mozzarella) which i saw him make for others and definitely melted better than the bufala one.
@pizzacommander I'll always root for Napoli but if i had to pick, it's AS Roma. long story. it goes back to the very early 80's and a player named Bruno Conti.
@ Raoul. yeah i KNEW my cousins would get a mention. that's why i mentioned them!
ha ha thanks guys
Gianluca
http://www.pizzaandcoffee.com/

Thanks very much for the kind word and support Za Man. I'm lookin' forward to having you stop in.

Ciao,

Paulie Gee

If you're interested in cherry pepper/sausage combos, I recommend taking a daytrip to the Fairfield train station in CT (Metro-North), where Nauti (as in Nautical) Dolphin first introduced me to this underrated topping scenario via their Spicy Sow pie.

I would also like to take this time to warn you and other slice readers about the underwhelming Hellfire pie at Hell's Kitchen Pizza. This great potential equals great letdown.

@seriouspizza: I agree that more than heat alone causes leoparding......thorough fermentation and other factors, all of which I do not pretend to understand as I have never cooked pizza in a WFO.

Although a pizza certainly does not need to be leoparded to be good!

That looks dammned near a perfect amber Neapolitan crust to me.I agree i would also like the cheese a little more melded into the sauce personally,but that is also consistent with many i've had in Naples.I know there is a lot of debate about the causes of leopard spotting,but I believe it is caused by more than heat alone.If that were the case,most of the pizzerias in Naples would be putting out pizzas with similar characteristics as Da Michele,and that is just not so - more are similar to what you see here.